by Karen Petrauskas | Apr 24, 2020
There was a time when online marketing was seen as an extra and something to do if your business had the resource, however now, more than ever, your online presence is an important and essential part of your business strategy.
Even before the global lock down, businesses large and small were recognising the need for communicating online. The move between traditional and digital advertising is forever increasing and with the amount of people accessing the internet on a daily basis growing as well, it’s a sure sign that this is where your business should be showing up.
However what areas of digital and online marketing should you focus on in order to gain the best results and see the best possible outcomes of your efforts? You don’t need to be completely tech savvy but there are some things that will helps you along the way.
First off, what is online marketing?
Online marketing is a subset of the bigger picture of digital marketing and refers to any type of marketing that takes place online. This could relate to social media, blogs, email newsletters, websites etc. It’s main purpose or focus is to attract customers and to help build an online presence.
Why use online marketing?
Your customers and prospects are looking for you online! The people you are trying to reach are spending much of their time online, they’re already searching for your services / products or what you have to offer – and here’s your chance to be there for them.
The benefits of marketing online?
As a small business or start up company, the main focus is going to be getting the first set of customers through the door. In the past, people would send leaflets through letterboxes or leave business cards in shop windows but now there is a much easier and more effective way to achieve results. The benefits of using online marketing include:
- Being able to interact and engage with your audience in real-time, 24 hours a day, being there at their time of need and providing a flow of communication when they want to hear from you.
- The ability to reach a wider audience, a global market-place, targeting specific groups or demographics where necessary.
- The ability to get to know and understand your audience, understanding their pain points and what they are looking for the most and building a relationship and trust between you.
- A cheaper and more cost-effective way of advertising.
Your competition is online
If your competition is online and you’re not, you’ll be missing out on opportunities that could have come your way. Learn from your competitors and see what they are doing – and what is working – and formulate your own version of this into your strategy. How are your competitors communicating with your audience, what platforms and content are they using?
Give your customers a choice on who they go to, if you’re not online, they don’t know you’re there!
Improve your credibility
We know that customers buy through someone they trust, and that bond and credibility is just as important when thinking about businesses online. So, using online marketing to build up that trust and to show your knowledge and expertise is the perfect place to get your message across. You can use network groups to provide indepth advise and expertise.
You can write articles and blogs to provide solutions to your audience which can be shared across your channels. You can begin to build an engaged audience through your email list and provide regular meaningful and insightful information.
The more visible you can make yourself and be available for people when they need you, the better.
Drive more traffic to your website or services
One of the main hurdles small businesses find is the ability to find quality leads and getting people to discover them in order to make sales. That’s the beauty of online marketing and using it correctly to drive traffic to your website, where people can find you and learn more about what you have to offer. Through the different types of content you produce, you have the ability to drive traffic to your site, whether that be through a Facebook post, an email newsletter or a guest blog post, when you write or create a piece of work, it’s the ideal chance to highlight your business .
Be inspirational
One point to remember is not to oversell your services as people will get bored or annoyed with being directed to the same point from every piece of content you produce. However, that doesn’t mean you can’t produce content – just mix up what you create and one of the best things you can do is provide inspirational content for your audience.
Measure analytics real-time
Another great reason to use online marketing is that you can measure and visit your analytics at any time, ready to be see what’s working and what not be. It is so much easier to be able to make adaptations and amendments at the click of a button in order to see better results. You don’t need to wait for results to roll in or for a third party to produce analytics for you – they are ready there for you. Make the use of every piece of information you can and analyse the data in order to build your business, engaging with every person that comes into contact with your business.
Marketing trends to implement
- Influencer marketing
- Content marketing
- Social media marketing
- Video marketing
- Email marketing
If you’d like to know more about any of these, we’re happy to talk through each option – just give us a bell and let’s talk.
In the meantime, why not download our FREE social media checklist – don’t forget the basics, it’s our gift to you.
by Team KJP | Feb 27, 2020
Where do you start when marketing your business online? Do you struggle with getting a relevant, interesting and authentic message across? Do you find it difficult to come up with content that doesn’t repeat everything else you say?
Sometimes when a marketing message goes stale, we need to take a step away to refresh, recharge and revisit our mission statement. What we think we are saying, what we really say and the way that message comes across can be completely different things. Do you find yourself in the trap of repetition and regurgitating the same content over and over again? It’s time to freshen up!
Go back to basics
Go back to the drawing board, it’s time to brainstorm.
Start at the very beginning of your mission statement and the values that you hold, the things that are most valuable to you and your business. What is it that drives you forward, that gives you the motivation to do what you do? These are the fundamental elements that glue your business together and make you want to succeed. And these are essential parts that your audience need to know about when getting to know who you are and what your brand about.
Start the storyboard
Moving from your mission and values, start to set the scene and tell the story of where you’ve come from to where you are now. Everyone loves a story and for you to be authentic and unique will set you apart from the competition. Get the story rolling by sharing the heart behind your mission, the thought process of why you do what you do, the emotional angle of what’s precious to you. And then you can move on to the services you offer, why you offer them, what products you have, what value you give, what people can get from you and everything that physically makes up your business. By now your brainstorm should have lots of parts to it, all different aspects relating to the make up of your business.
Now you can start to link them together and begin to pull a common thread through it all. All these things together are what you’re going to share with your audience. You don’t just have one message to share but lots of multifaceted aspects that make up your brand.
Your message will not have a chance to go stale when you constantly go back to the basics, revisit the drawing board and brainstorm regularly to bring new ideas and visions to the table.
New content with new ideas
Once you have the ideas flowing and you’ve got everything that says what your business is about, you’ve got an opportunity to create some new content to go with it.
- Blog posts
- Newsletters
- Ebooks/Books
- Social media content
- Webinars
- Podcasts
- Videos/vlogs
How can you put your message into the above types of content? It’s about getting creative and sharing your message in different ways. Jump behind the scenes and share a video about what’s happening/ what’s going on/ your team/ your network/ your office. Interview people or create a podcast, this could give an opportunity to work with industry professionals – it’s not necessarily you doing all the speaking but it’s giving value and a variety to your audience. How much more engaging can a video or podcast be rather than a simple blog post? Both varieties have their merit but by doing both blog and video you automatically have two types of content that you can use across your social media, which you can then re-purpose and use again and again.
Once you’ve written a blog post, how many images or types of posts (i.e. infographics / how tos etc) can you create that share a similar message which you can use across your channels? Re-posting the same blog image could get repetitive but 5 or 6 different images that relate to the same thing will give a variety to your readers and your audience.
Complacency
It’s easy to get stuck in a rut of what’s always work should always work – but that’s simply not the case, especially in a fast paced online world where there is so much competition and fight for attention. There is no place for complacency. You may be comfortable, you may love what you do, but are you seeing measurable results from it? If the answer is no, you’re just wasting valuable time that could be better invested in your business. Try not to sit on the fence hoping that something will change ‘soon’, if it’s not working, something needs to give. Go back to the drawing board and figure out what your message is truly about and give your marketing some fresh substance for people to get a hold of.
At the end of the day, your message needs to be fresh, consistent, inline with your values and mission and giving value to your audience. If it doesn’t meet these needs, you’re going to struggle to make it work. Use this opportunity to get creative in your marketing, to relight the fire and passion about what your business is about and to think of new ways of getting the attention of your audience. What is it they want to see, what do they want to hear that will solve their pain points? Be there in the forefront of their minds, show up when no one else does and give purpose to your brand. If you love it and share that zeal, then other’s will catch on and be there with you.
If you’d like to chat over your marketing plans or strategy or simply know that it’s time to outsource your social media marketing to a team that want you get results – and know how to get them!, we’d love to talk. Contact us today for an initial consultation.
In the meantime if you’d like some inspiration on what to talk to your audience about, why not download our FREE 2020 Awareness Days Calendar – and start the conversations today!
by Karen Petrauskas | Jul 20, 2019
Many business owners use the common social media networks to raise brand awareness, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, but how many people forget about LinkedIn?
LinkedIn is a fantastic place to raise your profile and is a powerful resource that you can tap into in order to grow your business and find new clients.
LinkedIn? Yes LinkedIn. People often think that LinkedIn is simply a place to add your CV online and that’s it. But that’s not the case, there is so much more to it than that. It’s a professional online community where you can connect with other business professionals, become known as a thought leader, show and share your expertise and get in front of people that are interested in you as well as your business – and it can be extremely powerful.
So, why LinkedIn for your business?
LinkedIn is a professional social channel where like-minded people can come together to network, gain advice, provide advice, or seek opportunities. The more you use the network, the more you will become known and the more opportunities will come your way, if you use it well.
Your profile is the core of everything and what information you put on there will influence the people that you connect with. You can use this for good or you can waste it but if you’re a business owner looking to grow your brand, using it wisely will be the better option!
Your profile
Think of your CV; career history, qualifications, skills, references, experience. Your LinkedIn profile is where all this can be put into one place online for others to see.
Many companies will search for clients (and it works both ways) on LinkedIn so this is the place where you can stand out from the crowd – if your profile is glowing with everything that person or business is looking for.
Get ahead
The secret to getting ahead with LinkedIn is to be visible and to ensure that your profile is complete. This may sound a simple thing to do, but it makes a difference. Many people fail to complete their profile, leaving gaps in their work history or forget to include skills that could be essential to a what a new client is looking for. Another simple step is that some people fail to make their profiles public which does not do well if you’re looking for clients!
In order to gain a 100% profile, complete these sections:
- Current Position and title
- At least two past positions
- Education
- Summary
- Specialties
- Profile Picture
- At least three to four recommendations
You can use the summary and specialties sections to describe your industry expertise along with skills or relevant experience that you’ve gained to get to where you are now.
It’s important that when writing your descriptions and summaries to use keywords that people will be searching for when they’re looking for your specific specialty. Include things that you’re passionate about, focused on and that drives you. People will see and relate to your enthusiasm and know that you have a passion for those things.
Remember that your profile is the most important part to complete. It provides the most valuable information for potential clients, networks and businesses to learn more about you, your skills and what you have to offer. It also gives people a chance to get to know you further before approaching you for your services.
Business Page
This is the place to promote your business, to tell a story and to showcase what your business offers. Set up a business page that reflects all that you do and the services or products that you provide. Ensure that all your vital information matches what is on your website, on other social media platforms and Google. This enables the search engines to recognise and authenticate that you’re real and align your business with other places on the internet.
Just like you did on your personal profile, ensure that all the information is complete and it includes contact details for when people want to get in touch.
Once you have a business page, you can use it together with your personal profile to build on brand awareness. It’s not easy to get people to notice your business straight from the word go, you won’t have any followers or post likes and it can be hard to get noticed unless you’ve got some great keyword copy. Therefore, to make it work better, once you have posted something on your business page, share it on your personal profile. More people are likely to see it and if they like what they see, they will visit your page (and hopefully follow!).
Also, your business has a personality and a face behind the brand, you. Let people know who you are and what your business does through your own profile. Share your business page in your own newsfeed and shout about your services! Connect the two on a regular basis so people start to relate you with the name of the business.
A business page doesn’t have to be updated too often, especially if you’re a small business or just starting out. Once or twice a week will suffice if you are still engaging, posting and promoting on your own profile (ensure that your business page is a link on your profile). Your business page is simply a page of reference for those who want to find out more about your business. Don’t stress about not having enough time to post content all the time on there, your personal profile is more important.
People have the idea that LinkedIn is simply an online CV database or a place to look for jobs. But LinkedIn is so much more – it’s actually one of the biggest search engines online! It offers professionals a place to network and build relationships that they would not necessarily have done without the social platform. It a place to ask questions, gain expertise advice from leading experts and improve on knowledge and expertise yourself through learning and helping others.
Networking and LinkedIn Groups
If you’re at a place where you want to take on more clients or build upon your business relationships, LinkedIn is the perfect place to network. And there are groups for everything and anything you could possibly think of! You can find relevant groups through the search function.
Joining groups can help establish yourself as an industry leader and is often how connections become clients because they can see the knowledge you have and the value you are providing. This can help with any B2B relationships you may be trying to grow.
Joining general discussions can also be done straight from your newsfeed too or you can search for topics that you know you’ll be able to give input to. Just answering people’s questions or providing solutions can lead to much more than you think. People like to recommend people they know, like and trust. When you start to build a reputation around the people you’re communicating with, you’re putting yourself out there for other people to recommend your professionalism and services.
And networking or groups doesn’t have to be all work related, you can utilise LinkedIn groups for personal hobbies or interests too! Many relationships are built from outside the office and people who have hobbies in common also build trust through their conversations which can often lead to business interests.
When you know that a contract is coming to an end, or you’re simply trying to build a business with new clients, LinkedIn is a perfect place to find new life. By engaging with potential clients and providing value in all that you post or write, you’re showcasing your business and allowing others to see what you have to offer.
Show your passion
The enthusiasm and passion that you put into your content, whether that be your own content and posts, articles or within comments and discussions, will make people aware of how much you care about your specialist subject. When you are able to provide passionate answers that clearly show your knowledge and background experience, you’re indicating that you know that you’re talking about! People want to know that you care. People want to know that you’re good at what you say you’re good at. People will buy from people who can prove their capabilities. LinkedIn can allow you to express all your professionalism, personality, cares and desires all in one place! It’s not a platform to share your family holiday photos (unless it tells a relevant story), it’s a place to shout out to the world what skills and talents you have and how you can use them to provide value to others.
We personally love LinkedIn and think it’s a great place to engage with your audience. What do you think? Are you utilising LinkedIn for your business?
If you know you need to be on LinkedIn but are not sure where to start, we’d love to guide you through and help you get started. Contact us and let’s talk.
by Karen Petrauskas | Dec 15, 2018
It’s not difficult to work out that if you write well, people will want to read what you’ve written. But writing well doesn’t come naturally to some people and some find it hard to put pen to paper (or fingers to keys!) to express what they want to say.
If you’re new to content marketing and are looking to engage more with your audience, you need to concentrate on creating content that speaks directly to your reader. So let’s focus on the writing aspect of content marketing, how can you improve your writing skills?
Create powerful headlines
This is the first thing that your reader will see when your post or article appears, your headline is the most important part of your content. Grab the attention of the reader, and they’re more likely to keep reading the rest of what you have to say.
Within your headline highlight the most important concept of what you want your reader to know. Rather than padding out with ‘waffle’ be blunt and to the point. Many people skim read and when people are using mobile devices whilst on the go, they will only pick out content that hits them hard with something that will give them value. Stating that in your headline will give them curiosity and the desire to read more.
Make your writing easy to read
If you’re using Yoast SEO in your blog posts, it will let you know whether your article is easy to read. This is a great start when you first start blogging or writing.
Next, take time to read through your content and see how easy you find it to read it. As we mentioned, many people skim read so it’s a good idea to lay out your writing in a way that allows the reader to just take out the bits they need. This comes with your headlines, but it also comes with the way that it’s laid out and presented. Big chunks of text with no space for breathing can be hard on the eyes. Neatly titled sections allow eyes to skim through much easier. Adding in images to your content breaks up the text too. Although this isn’t part of ‘writing’ it shows that you are thinking of the reader when you’re putting your content together. Images and visuals can be as powerful as a good title, so use this within your writing to create breaks and demonstrate what you are talking about. Presentation should always be good.
Ensure correct grammar
Editing as you write is not a great idea, you may lose track of what you’re writing about or lose momentum and miss the point. Our advice is to just write, write and write and then afterwards go back and check for spelling and grammar. Take time after you’ve finished to edit and make amendments, even ask for a second pair of eyes if grammar is not your strong point. You could even use an app to check this for you. We can recommend Grammarly which is a great tool to get both spelling and grammar correct. 
Proof read
This is part of the above point but always proof read everything you write. This goes for your blogs for sure, but it also goes for all content that you are producing, whether it be a Facebook post, a quick tweet or even the hashtags in your Instagram posts. If you have spelling mistakes within your content, it looks unprofessional and like you haven’t had the time to check correctly.
When it comes to your social media posts, if you have time, create a marketing calendar each month where you can schedule or draft all your posts ready to publish – then you can go back and proof read them all to ensure they are correct. Or you can send them to a friend to check for you.
Get into the habit
Writing is like anything and the more you do it, the better you will get. Practice makes perfect! If you’re blogging or writing a lot of articles it’s a good idea to get into the habit of writing. If you can manage a little every day, it will improve your writing skills. The more you write and the more frequent you get into the habit of writing, the more natural it will become for you.
Benefits of writing daily…
- Writing can make you happier
- Writing leads to better communication and understanding
- Writing gives you an outlet to share expression
- Writing leads to better learning
- You’ll actually be surprised at how easier it becomes the more you write!
Don’t fill for the sake of it
People are busy and they want to read the necessity, grab what’s valuable and then move on. If you spend ages writing about something that’s not providing value or adding sections that are not relevant to what the article is actually about, you will lose your audience. They are there to read what the title says it’s about – not what you had for lunch! Longer articles are not always better. A short, to the point and valuable blog post is much more effective than a long, drawn-out article that hardly touches on the point in question.
Use your proof-reading time to take out any filler content which will make your article much easier to read and more appealing to your audience. 
Read lots
If you’re wanting to write for other people, it makes sense that you read lots yourself. This gives you an idea of the type of content that you enjoy reading and the type of content that your readers with similar interests will enjoy too. You should be passionate in your writing and have good understanding and knowledge of the topic that you are writing about. Reading and researching provides this back up and resource for your own writing. Always take notes – this is a great habit to have as often you’ll have a whole load of notes that you can put together to create worthwhile reading.
Try subscribing to websites that you enjoy reading from and bloggers that can give you advice on the topics that you love to write about. You’ll gain lots of inspiration and valuable ideas that you can utilise in your own blog posts, help you learn which style of writing you want to aspire to and then help you to create killer content that everyone loves.
At the end of the day we are all unique and have our own style of writing, but keep in mind that when you’re writing for an audience, you are writing for them! Be unique in your style and create your own story telling ways, be inspirational and motivational where you can to give your readers something to take away from your posts. And most importantly, check everything more than once and ensure that it reads well, spelling and grammar are correct and that it tells the truth. A key to good writing is providing value – nail this and you’re well on your way!
Here at KJP Creative we love writing. We write on behalf of a number of clients across a variety of industries. If you’re looking to add good content to your online marketing but simply don’t have the time, ask us about our Content Marketing packages, we’d love to help. Get in touch today!
by Karen Petrauskas | Dec 11, 2018
As we approach the end of the year, it’s a good a time as any to think about what has worked and what hasn’t this year in your business marketing strategy. This can give you an opportunity to revamp your marketing strategy ready for the new year ahead.
Every business wants to see leads coming in, but if those leads aren’t seeking what your business is offering, there is no point to them and your efforts have been wasted.
It’s always good to look at what’s around the corner and what’s coming up as new trends, innovations and competitors all play a part in how well your marketing works with your audience.
Take a look back through all your data this year – what can it tell you? As a small business owner, it can be hard to stay on top of marketing objectives but if you’ve played your cards right this year, you’ll see your results clearly and be able to take from it the things that have worked well to be able to replicate and do even better in the future. On the flip side, you can take out the things that have not worked so well and make changes to those processes.
Don’t get stuck into just looking at the data in a single vision tunnel. Use more than one analytical tool to measure your marketing – and don’t just trust Google Analytics! If you’re using third party social tools, many come with analytics or insights. Check these regularly and record the data, or save the reports so you’ve got comparisons throughout the year.
Tip: It doesn’t matter how successful you’ve been this year, it’s always good to tweak processes to ensure success again next year.
Things change year on year. If you have something in your marketing strategy that was good last year, it may not be applicable next year and this is where a revamp comes in.
Goals: Be specific
Ask questions to realise what is important to you and what is / is not working in your marketing so far.
- Are you reaching out to the right audience on the right platform?
- Are you meeting the needs of your audience?
- Who are you competitors and how can you use their business to benefit yours?
- What’s worked best / worst for you this year?
Goals: Put your specifics into targets
Use the specifics in your questions and answers to create goals that you can work towards and are attainable. Setting goals too high can lead to disappointment. Be realistic in your thoughts and plans.
- Increase website traffic by X%
- Reach X% of customers more than last year
- Hit a £XX target by first quarter
- Achieve X% higher engagement rate on social media
These goals need to be monitored on a regular basis, set goals for different periods of the year: Q1, Q2, and check if you are reaching those goals each time. If you’re doing well and over achieving, there’s a window to re assess the marketing plan and set your sights even higher. If things are not working as well as you first thought or assumed, you can revamp to more achievable targets.
What can you look out for within your marketing strategy?
Trends
Everyone wants to be on top of what’s to come. This means staying on top new trends. You can achieve this by social listening, connecting manually with businesses and industry leaders on social media and keeping a general watchful eye on the social media channels. They shift very quickly, and all are moving at a pace that can be unexpected in marketing spheres.
Expand your reach with social media
You’ve dabbled in social media marketing this year or in the past and know what it’s capable of which now gives way to you digging deeper into your social media and utilising everything that you’ve learned to reach even further. There is power when it comes to social media marketing and the horizons are bright when it’s used correctly. Create different ways to engage with your audience, that will showcase what you have to offer and what value your business will provide.
Here are some ways to get engagement:
- Seasonal or promotional campaigns
- Surveys / polls
- Ask for topics people would like to read about
- Get website feedback
- Competitions
- Create shareable content
- Use quotes and inspiration content
Inbound
Attracting customers from an inbound way may sound hard work but actually it’s not if you have everything in place ready and waiting.
Say for example a business is looking for a company to provide delivered lunches to the office, they discuss it within their management meeting and give the task of finding a provider to the office administrator. The first thing they will probably do is Google “delivered lunches to offices in XX town”. If you’ve done everything correctly within your marketing strategy, you should hopefully appear somewhere near the top of that search list.
The website that looks the most attractive with good and detailed information, that are easily contactable, perhaps have a good social media following and can show customer testimonials etc. will probably be the one that will contacted first. All these components together portray a good online image and with no extra effort from yourselves, you have attracted an inbound client.
Therefore, everything needs to be within your marketing strategy from start to finish, not leaving any options out. Website / social media / SEO / content marketing – the whole lot comes together to form your business.
SEO
This means ‘search engine optimisation’ and is the optimising of your content so that it appears higher in search engine results. So, if someone is searching for ‘social media agency’, for example, you’d hope that your company lists high up in Google for your business to appeal to those searching. Therefore, your SEO strategy plays a part in your overall marketing plan. Take some time to ensure that all the keywords that people would be searching for when it comes to your business industry or service area, are within your content. This is important on your website, but it’s also important in your social media content too. All content is searchable, and you want to aim for the highest search results possible. This can be maximised by your content marketing.
Content marketing
Content is key! Recent surveys show that businesses who invest in their content marketing have a conversion rate of six times higher of those that don’t. Content marketing relates to blogs, articles, podcasts, video and social media as a vehicle for driving traffic and raising brand awareness.
The Content Marketing Institutes states this: Content marketing is a marketing technique of creating and distributing valuable, relevant and consistent content to attract and acquire a clearly defined audience – with the objective of driving profitable customer action.
The key word in this definition is ‘valuable’. This is what attracts and retains a reader and is what turns them into a customer and a long-term client that is sustained. Anyone can post content but is that content worth reading and is it worth looking at the business behind the content? If you can grab the attention of the audience by using key words that trigger emotions, you will create a hook for that person to keep reading.
Give a call to action with your content, once a person has read the value you have, they need somewhere to go next. Can you give that to them or will they hop onto something else?
Conclusion
There is much that can be done to revamp your marketing strategy but it needs to start with good brainstorming and research and come from a passion to really want something to happen. If you do not give your marketing plan 100% focus, you’ll not stay on the right track and will be distracted easily. Take time to perform as much research as you can and to watch competitors as they handle their marketing. What gaps can you see that your competitors are missing that you can use and provide value in? Where do you see your business heading and what do you want to achieve by this time next year?
Need a little help in putting a marketing plan together? Do not fear, you’ve come to the right place! We’d love to help you get organised and with a plan ready to implement. Download our social media marketing calendar first off and then get in touch for an initial chat… start the year as you mean to go on!
If you’re looking to get a clear business focus in 2020 and to put together a social media strategy to lead your business forward, ask us about our WORKSHOPS.
